YOUR OPINION: What will Tom Reed stand for?

In the pages of this newspaper, I asked a question of Rep. Reed: What will he do?

Would he vote to take away health care from 23 million Americans?

Would he call the investigation of Russian interference in our elections a witch hunt?

Would he voice support for reducing safeguards for keeping pollutants out of our waterways?

Would he support our president’s decision to pull America out of the Paris climate accords?

Would he remain silent as our education secretary proposes taking away $1.2 billion from after school programs and millions of dollars more from Special Olympics, teacher training and student loan programs?

Unfortunately, we now know that Reed has stood with unwavering and unanimous support for the current administration’s policies, executive orders and bills.

By both his actions and inactions we must now ask ourselves, what is Reed fighting for?

Is he fighting for the belief in partisan illogic and immorality, in a political party that remains the only party in the world, liberal or conservative, that pushes forth a denial of climate change?

Is he fighting for the belief in a country that doesn’t want to be at the forefront of the proven potential and economic impact of renewable energy?

Is he fighting for the belief that defeating liberals is more important that defeating common threats of climate change and Russian electoral interference?

Is he fighting for the belief that puts outside interests over the concerns of his own constituency?

Is he fighting for the belief in a healthcare system that treats womanhood as a pre-existing condition and that out-prices our most vulnerable from affordable insurance plans?

If he is, then let us have no illusions to what version of America he is fighting for. Let us make no mistake that this version of America is not about reducing big government’s role in our lives, it’s not about fixing a broken health care system, it’s not about bringing back jobs, and it’s not about giving parents a choice in their child’s education.

It is, however, about tax breaks and the redistribution of money back to the one percent.

It is about waging a war against women.

It is about allowing state sponsored discrimination.

And it is about a president who will stop at nothing to dismantle the legacy of his predecessor simply because of the color of his skin.

If this is what he is fighting for, if this is what he will do, then what will we do? What will we fight for?

Will we make Reed own his decision to believe in this very worst version of America, this version of American that holds no promise or prosperity for future generations?

Will we endure the struggle he is unwilling to make, to stand up for the cities and towns and villages and households across the Southern Tier and beyond?

If not us, then who, because we know it won’t be the elected congressman of the 23rd district of New York.